The Physics of Starship Battles UPDATED AND REMASTERED: Gravity and Potential Energy

[aarontaylor94]

slamming stuff at planets is entertaining, alien invasion in cinema is entertainment.

Why don't they make a blockbuster film with aliens that slam rocks into planets to conquer?

the closest i've seen would be the babylon 5 episode with Centauri mass drivers and Battle: LA's alien drop pods

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@aarontaylor94 Hollywood doesnt use rocks as there's no way to have heroes to save the day ;)

The only time an alien invaded the Earth the "right" way (most useful and most unfair), was that TNT series Falling Skies, where the aliens zapped us with an EMP, forcing us to fight hand to hand with no electronics

[isaiahawsum]

@SpreadingtheMuse trek never shielded entire planets because that would be pointless. Any shield that big would be stretched to thin, and any weapon powerful enough to wreak havoc on the entire surface would easily punch through. They just shielded important installations.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

Yes, the method of destruction depends on your goal. Extermination is one thing, but colonization is another. The TNT TV series "Falling Skies" did it with EMP, cause they needed humans alive as slaves. (I've made an EMP movie, in my uploads)

My point here was to show how dumb Independence Day was, which used a destruction beam that didnt even kill as much as single nuke would.

[RonnyCorona]

Rocks as weapons are not viable if your goal is colonization. Creating a wasteland would be counter-productive, yes? You really only need to destroy our society. And to do THAT you need only take out some infrastructure. !. Commucication Satelites. 2 The Power Grid 3. Dams 4. Freighters on the high seas and in port. 5. Then you attack major population centers with WMDs. Within months we're back in the stone age and you never engaged the military at all. And all this from orbit no less.

[LouistheHedgehog]

3:20 Problem with your argument. Say the ones on the surface, like the rebels, have some sort of shield generator and surface-to-orbit weapons. Meaning that the fleet in orbit, like the Empire, would have to deploy a surface based attack in order to destroy them.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@LouistheHedgehog Funny how STAR WARS is the only one who ever used that defense. Maybe in Trek the tech doenst exist to shield a planet, or more likely it just never occurred tot he writers, who got increasingly less-sci fi as the franchise went on

[GreatInca]

Humans need a new and improved power source. Even particle beams, railguns, and mass drivers often have much more energy than gravity can offer for free. Oil just won't cut it and space based solar is just not cost effective. Point singularity weapons would be the ultimate, if not very dangerous for collateral damage. Biological weaponry (especially if nanovirus based) is the best extermination weapon that will leave infrastructure intact, as long as there are no robo-soldiers.

[Kraktzor]

....my physics here may be wrong, but if you blow a giant rock thats falling into the atmosphere into a million little rocks, they each have there own share of the original velocity, so individually they wouldn't do as much damage, and wouldn't some of the really small ones just burn up in the atmosphere at that point?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@Kraktzor

The sum total of the energy remains. If some of the energy is lost in rocks that burn up, that energy turns into heating up the atmosphere. May not hurt us all that much, but the energy is still conserved. And the "induvidual" energy of the rocks is less than the whole, but we're talking about the sum energy. Two 1 ton rocks have the same energy as one 2 ton rock.

[GreatInca]

@SpreadingtheMuse While the sum of energy is the same BEFORE it reaches the atmosphere, A broken up asteroid does have more surface area and will loose much more kinetic energy to atmospheric resistance, and could save humanity as long the original it isn't one of those mega rocks (otherwise the heat added to the global atmosphere could be overwhelming).

[EnigmaHood]

@GreatInca It depends, heating up the atmosphere would probably cause more deaths than a large asteroid striking the ground even. We're talking about huge increases in atmospheric temperature.

[ThatsMrFrank]

Where exactly does the energy of gravity come from then? and there goes it 'go'?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@ThatsMrFrank

Currently, the best theory of gravity is that its another dimensional force, one of the 26, one for each force in our universe: Electromag, nuclear, etc. The power comes from that other dimension. Whatever that means :p

[Bluedrake42]

@SpreadingtheMuse but we can't harvest energy from gravity, otherwise we'd just have gravity power plants everywhere, and even things like dams are actually just power plants harvesting the energy from the water cycle. So gravity isn't exactly energy, its a force. In the same way a metal spring is not energy, but it is a way to store potential energy.

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@Bluedrake42

No we cant harvest it, but its there nevertheless.  Gravity increases velocity and velocity translates into kinetic energy.

[Bluedrake42]

@SpreadingtheMuse love your videos btw =D

[Bluedrake42]

ACTUALLY! you forgot to mention something. the aliens may not want to drop a big rock on earth because they'd be afraid to mess up its orbit, or maybe even its plant life, etc. etc. so there still are quite a few reasons for an invasion.

[ThatsMrFrank]

I really love your videos :)

[starknight97]

you missed b5 where they destroy the narn home world with with asteroids great clip. watch?v=bjIlqrAfbbg Yet you can do nasty stuff from the ground too tzar bombs or even super cannons. Take a bed rock drill laser be preferred drill a hole 1 mile deep though mountain point up. fill with water add nuke. make super heavy round destroy anything in way of cannon. Great work though keep it up next i'll say defense you have have make.

[starknight97]

@starknight97 Depending how fare away the Rock is dropped on earth is you defense you use. way out their just touch it with a low yield nuke too move it course by 1 deg now it misses the earth. If in close no time for super cannon.Use staggered nukes.First 1 a bunker buster or 2 or 3. these nukes are harden to piece deep into the rock then yes blow it too tiny rocks. Still all that mass at you. Second wave of nukes high yield blast radius waves these deflect the rocks back out &at attacking ship

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@starknight97

9:27

I had hoped to put an end to that once and for all ;)

Ah but the hole in the ground with the nuke at the bottom? You saw that Discovery Channel show too I see. ;)

[starknight97]

@SpreadingtheMuse Yeah seen that one though much it's older. Then they used disks. Bad move there flying up flat side lol. You be better off making a Real round of some kind. Hey 1 major difference though 1. attack uses minor energy to launch wile the defense still take major energy launch and use

[LordKorloros]

"Get in your spaceship, fly into space, find the biggest rock you can, get way above the Earth, and just drop it." For something that simple, that HAS to suck for anyone getting the short end of the stick.

[GreatInca]

@LordKorloros Still need energy to change that rock's orbit. The more eliptical the orbit and the closer to its apogee, the more you can manipulate its orbit to a favorable interception with less energy, but earth gets a lot of time to address the threat also. Keiper belt objects probably work best, and it will need to be a big object, big enough so that our puny oil-based energy sources cannot redirect it before it hits.

[GreatInca]

If the aliens are as impatient as us americans, this is of course not an option.

[LordKorloros]

@GreatInca Makes sense. Why the Keiper belt though, is it because its closer?

[GreatInca]

@LordKorloros What's farther than the keiper belt without going interstellar? Was thinking keiper belt because it is further. The more elongated the orbit and the closer to the apogee of such orbit, the less energy it requires to manipulate the perigee of such orbit.

[Krellnus]

Awesome, KEEP IT UP!

[hayden50]

cool, thanks......

[Bardou]

i am viewer 0. lol wut?

[SpreadingtheMuse]

@Bardou Had to start somewhere ;)